No Failure here…

This is the exact reason why we go the extra mile to put in the geotextile under our patios and walkways. The lot was still empty next door when we finished the project. Later this summer they started the construction next door. They dug the foundation, making sure that they dug RIGHT next to our fence and our clients finished yard even though they have 4 feet to the new basement. Well as you can expect, the hole gets larger as they weren’t very timely in backfilling the hole. Some rains came and the hole got even larger. The fence stood there, with a post in the air and the earth fell away from our clients yard.

Well… the hole STOPPED falling where we have engineered our pathway. This is probably the reason it didn’t get MUCH larger. The geotextile fabric at the bottom of our constructed base knits the entire path together into a unit that is VERY hard to remove or undermine. We will have to replace this portion of the pathway as the ground below has sunk a bit, but as you can see the bricks and the constructed base have performed amazingly in staying together as a unit! What a unique perspective at our over engineered patio!

Notice the fabric at the bottom of the gravel, right where the cavitation stopped? The base is almost vertical from the fabric to the paver edge. incredible!

EVEN in one spot where the base did undermine a bit, the path structure is still solid! At this point, I am told they had the bucket of the excavator, pretty much UNDER the fence.

Hand designs…

Back to the basics… it seems to do the trick tho… It’s privacy for a hot tub in the deck…

Quite a progression…

   

And some other photos of our latest Cranston Project…

Please… email me again…

I had a huge computer blow up and lost a ton of stuff. If you have emailed me in the last week. Please re-send your note…

Thanks…

Catching up…

Hoo boy, have I been remiss in posting to this journal… Sorry! especially to Jane in Salmon Arm, who is our most faithful reader. She checks the journal diligently every single day! I will work harder on this, just knowing we have at least 1 loyal reader!

So, what is up? Well we moved on from Elgin Village, completed a project in Cranston and are looking after the last bits of 4 smaller projects in Evanston, Airdrie, Evanston, and Richmond (NO! we do NOT work that far north!). We are now moving into Elbow Park for some pre-work on a future project, starting a full yard renovation in Cranston and looking at 2 more projects on LeeDavid Street in Elgin again. We are also in talks for projects in Aspen Woods, Springbank Hill, Cranstonx6, Douglasdale, and so on. We are pretty busy right now,and If you are waiting for design or quote, please do not despair, we are getting back to everyone in order, and be ready because when your number is called we are ready to GO! The weather has been fabulous and we are banging out projects like crazy.

So, Speaking of projects. Here is a fun progression of photos on the last project in Elgin Village.

And, remember the grass on the first project in Elgin? Well here it is then and now! what a difference a month makes!

Additionally, we completed a ‘Hardscapes only’ project in Cranston. The Homeowner is a very good handyman, but just needed some help as they just had their 3rd beautiful child and time is scarce. He did build the nice deck, boardwalk and fence prior to us building the Retaining wall, drainage, patio and planting the big trees for them. I am looking forward to seeing the finished project when it is complete.

Nice detail work on the patio, team!

I did see some pretty interesting stuff as well. Like, I thought the city instituted the Final house and lot grading certificate, so homeowners could proceed with their landscaping, confident in the fact that the lot has indeed been graded properly. Sadly, we see this quite a bit these days… (Ed note: not a LeeDavid Project)

I will leave you tonight with this last photo of a really nice mature yard here in Calgary. I thought it would be nice to show the future potential of what a properly landscaped yard will look like in 15 years when the secret ingredient is employed in the annual care of the yard. The secret ingredient is… love!

2010 Nissan Cube…

Everyone, meet ‘Rubi’, ‘Rubi’ meet everyone.

We had too many trailers and not enough trucks. Dad got my truck, the crew got his truck and I got a cube. All I do is run around doing customer consults, banking, site visits etc. I never carry anything, so, we now have a cube. It will be branded with LeeDavid Logos by the end of next week. Should be a head turner.

Glass Block in a Pergola, who-da-thunk-it?

…sure looks nice!

Almost finished… again!

There are just a few items remaining, the shrubs, the sod, which is arriving today and the ‘high design’ portion of the pergolas, can’t wait to see the finished product. The long pathway is complete from the front to the back as well.

Mrs. Homeowner had a complaint the other day, not about us or our work, but because random people were trespassing into her yard on the weekend to look at the new landscape.

She would look out her window and someone would just be standing there looking around. She went out for an errand at one point and when she came home there was someone walking around her yard. She didn’t know if she should get out of the vehicle because she was worried it might make the guy feel embarrassed. But in the end she was like “wait a minute, this is my house, and why are you in my yard?”

In the following picture, we have a really good look at why we use the expensive aluminum edging to define the beds and features. This product does not rely on any earth material to support the shape, so we can pre-form our areas and then fill with the correct material. This allows us to pack the soils to the proper specifications without worrying about and movement or support issues to the garden edges. The 5” depth of the edging also keep the grass root from migrating into the beds, so maintenance over the long run is much easier.

(oh, by the way, Ryan is installing some really cool lights, that add a bit of whimsy to a fairly formal landscape, but will probably be removing as the homeowner HATES them. I did choose them for a little flair and thought the kids might like them, but I suppose I am wrong sometimes, and we will put a different feature in there if they don’t warm up to our way of thinking, haha)

In other news, if you ever get a chance to put in a back door to your garage, DON’T. This has caused us and the homeowner some pretty major water/drainage grief. The grading is meant to be built up at the point where they put the door in to the tune of about a foot higher, so there was significant negative drainage in that spot.

We were able to bring it to to just ‘level’. Level is not good enough though. So we installed a positive drain and connected it to our downspout drainage.

This will take care of most of the rainfall that lands here, but there still may be some ice build-up during the winter and spring. At least this way the water won’t stay there once it melts.

A special request for grass…

An anonymous reader has requested a photo of some grass! While we are not at the grass stage of the project the request was made for, here are the photos of the grass on our most recent completed projects, keeping in mind this is early season still. If you are in Calgary, have a look around to see what most of the grass looks like, and this is right on par. Maybe better. We have some HOT weather coming, so that will green everything up nicely.

Remember when it was like this?

Our next patio brick pattern in Elgin Village…

And again, more rain…

… but we just keep on plugging away. I really do have to commend the crew for their cheery depositions during all this cold and rainy weather. We are making very good progress in the face of some very challenging conditions. As a comparison, we lost 10 days to weather by this time last year, this year we have only lost 3, and the weather has been pretty much the same.

All the things we are doing differently that allow us to proceed this year are:

- taking care of surface water and runoff, before it becomes an issue... That’s it.

That entire list, of one items is the reason we can ‘giv’er’ We are taking incredible care, even to the extents of going to the next project and pre-grading, just in case it rains before we get there. Again, great job team.

I drove into the neighbourhood today while it was raining, and pulled up next to the other landscaper working on our block. I rolled the window down and he says “what the hell is all this, man?'” referring to all the rain.

I took his picture and asked if I could quote him, because it pretty much sums it all up. What the hell IS all this… man.

Our crew seems much smarter. they get out of the rain…sometimes…  hehe.

Just Friday left and we are off for the long weekend. This is one of the valuable perks for our crew. Guaranteed long weekends off. Have fun and be safe team, be ready to ‘giv’er’ on Tuesday!

Done… almost, just some grass left…

We completed our first two projects today, yippee. The rain started about 1 minute after though, so that was it for the day. Everyone went home pretty happy I think. Especially since it is a long weekend coming up, AND we finished. I always ask the crew “what was your favorite part of the project?” they always respond “Finishing it.”

I understand. Because this is what ‘during’ the project feels like:

and this is what ‘after’ the project feels like:

Our new guy Jake seems happy whenever I see him. Keep up the good work Jake. (he’s not really that tall, it’s the 4 inches of mud on his boots)

Here are a few other pictures of our ‘almost’ finished project. Thursday the grass will arrive and then it’s all done! As I said earlier, Yippee! So now we have moved 4 houses down the block to start the next one.